


Drifting

by jabbathebutt



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jabbathebutt/pseuds/jabbathebutt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrote this ages ago to ease the why-can't-I-enlist-in-Starfleet blues. Apparently I used to be able to write dialogue? News to me.</p><p>Angst, fluff, humour. Post-battle. Kirk has survivor's guilt. McCoy doesn't want to hear about it. Emotions are raw, bro hugs are good, and cuddles make the world go 'round.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drifting

Kirk leaned forward over his desk, propped up on locked arms and feeling for all the world like he was going to throw up. Right now that seemed like the best thing for him, to just vomit and vomit and vomit up all the blood and death and guilt until he was empty of it. He was their captain, he was responsible for the 400 lives on his ship and yet he couldn’t keep them all alive. Not all the determination in the world would protect his crew from harm. He’d had that rather rudely shoved in his face the past few days.

He sat down slowly, expecting the pain from his broken ribs to flare up and feeling guilty when it didn’t. McCoy had fixed him up well. Not everyone had been so lucky. Not everyone had lived to make it to sickbay. Kirk didn’t know the numbers yet, the chaos was too great to account for everyone yet. But they had lost a great many crewmen. Could they even fly the Enterprise to the nearest Starfleet outpost with a skeleton crew like this? Ah, Enterprise. She was dead in the water for now, the engines offline and computer barely functional. It had taken him three tries for it to let him into his own quarters. He wondered if it would let him out, if he ever wanted to go out again and face the crew like nothing was wrong, like it was no big deal. It _was_ a big deal. He wasn’t sure he wanted to leave his quarters, not for a month or so. Maybe not ever. He put a hand over his stomach, trying to make the deep ache go away. He felt like his innards were imploding on themselves. Part of him hoped they were.

This was very unusual behavior for the famed starship captain, but they had not suffered losses like this before. The Enterprise was a warship flying under a flag of science. Exploration was her primary purpose, blasting the crap out of attackers and getting the hell away was a necessary component of that. She was rarely outgunned, but the unknown ship, though smaller, had crippled them faster than anything they’d ever seen before. And then, growing disinterested, it seemed, it had simply warped away.

Kirk got up and paced around restlessly, unable to get the images from the recent altercation out of his head. He hadn’t slept in 52 hours. First the battle, now its aftermath. He saw Sulu’s face, bloodied and broken. Chekov crumpled in the corner like a ragdoll. Crew members he had known so well, lying in charred heaps or sucked out and smeared across Enterprise’s bulkhead. Bodies drifting limply in space like they were not and had never been real. He sat down on his bunk and pressed his fingers against his eyes, trying to chase the faces away with the red and tan smoke pattern that spread behind his eyelids. It was uncomfortable, but he tried to focus on the inside of his eyelids, imagining a sandstorm billowing out, coming to engulf him. Eventually his hands dropped to his lap and he lay down on his side, focusing on the most trivial useless things he could. Shelves. The ceiling. The hairs on the back of his hand. Then exhaustion claimed him and he slept.

The door chimed and whooshed open, which was strange because Kirk remembered setting it to lock. He lay there, puzzled, until he realized that the chime signaled that medical override had been used to open the door.

“Jim? You in here?” McCoy’s voice called out as the door slid to a close behind him.

“Yeah, in here,” he said hoarsely.

“Figured you could use a drink.”

Kirk heard the clink of glasses and a bottle. _Oh hell, if I start drinking now I might never stop,_ he thought.

“You gonna come out here or what?” McCoy barked.

Kirk rolled out of bed reluctantly, straightening his uniform as he stood. He hadn’t had time to change out of it, but he figured McCoy wouldn’t mind. The man was just as overworked as he was. He emerged from the sleeping area running his hands through his short hair and blinking sleep from his eyes.

“You look like how I feel,” Bones scoffed.

“I don’t want to know what how I feel looks like,” Kirk groaned.

A short wide glass full of dark brandy was held out to him, and Kirk took it wordlessly. The two men folded themselves into the chairs and reclined in silence, each staring into the richly-coloured amber liquid sitting in their glasses.

Kirk didn’t ask about sickbay. He couldn’t. He wanted to say something, but all the casual topics of conversation led into territory he didn’t want to explore. He looked up to see McCoy tipping his drink back in a few swigs. The man made a face and shook his head quickly as if to shake off the aftertaste. Of course! Kirk felt like a tool. How could he have been so selfish? McCoy was in exactly the same boat as him, if not worse. Though it was Kirk’s duty to keep his crew from harm, it was McCoy’s to put it back together again. He must’ve been up to his elbows in gore for the past 48 hours!

“Thanks,” he said at last.

“It’s just a drink, Jim.”

“It’s not just a drink. You’re always there when I need to talk. You’re always looking after everyone. You work so damn hard–”

“I get the point.”

“Just.. I appreciate all that you do. I don’t say it enough. I think I’d lose my mind without you.”

“Well you’re welcome. You’re a reckless fool half the time, but you’re the best damn captain I know,” McCoy replied in his usual brusque tone.

Kirk slumped a little in his chair, disagreeing heavily with McCoy’s last statement. He’d nearly gotten them all killed. A good captain just didn’t do that.

“Stop beating yourself up,” Bones snapped, “Your guilt’s like a goddamn elephant in the room!”

Kirk opened his mouth to protest, but McCoy had already slammed his glass down on the table and risen to his feet.

“I swear, you start talking to me about death and I will walk out that door right now. You have absolutely _no idea_ what kind of horrific mess I’ve been trying to re-arrange into something resembling _organs_ these past few days! I look up and see faces I know, and I look down and see something that barely looks human anymore. Don’t talk to me about how hard it is to lose crew members.”

Kirk’s mouth hung open for a full five seconds before he regained his composure enough to speak. He hadn’t seen his friend so livid before.

“I’m sorry Bones.”

McCoy sat down again, heavily and with resignation. “Me too.”

Jim finished his drink and leaned back in his chair, watching the doctor warily. “I think we’re all just tired. Maybe things will look better when I don’t feel like a walking zombie.”

“I can give you a hypo to help you sleep. It’ll calm you down and keep you from having nightmares.” And with Kirk asleep McCoy was less likely to start yelling at him again.

“You say the sweetest things,” Kirk said with the most convincing wry grin he could muster.

McCoy managed a small scoff as he got to his feet. Kirk rose at the same time and for a moment they found themselves uncomfortably in each other’s faces. McCoy was still fighting to regain his composure after his earlier outburst, and the conflict written in the few lines on the older man’s face made Kirk act without thinking. He pulled McCoy into a hug. McCoy stiffened to the extent that Kirk imagined it felt about the same as hugging Spock would. Awkwardly, McCoy put one arm and then the other around Jim’s back. He patted him stiffly between the shoulder blades, unsure how to behave when Jim was clearly not himself. Even as his confidant, he had never seen Kirk so unprofessional and vulnerable.

Kirk relaxed into his friend’s loose embrace, trying to banish the awkwardness by casting aside his own. It was surprisingly comfortable, the way he folded against McCoy. He felt a little saner with this physical display of companionship, this wordless “I’m here”. But in the morning Bones would not be there, and he would have to face the world alone again. He was having conflicting feelings. Was he actually considering asking McCoy to stay the night? Not as lovers, of course, but as… company. Though he only had one bunk. No matter how he thought of it, he didn’t want McCoy to leave. Not when he was feeling safe for the first time since the first devastating shots had been fired. Actually it had been much longer than that since he had felt this protected, and he wasn’t looking forward to the empty feeling that would follow when he was alone again.

“What if I wake up and everything’s just as bad?” Kirk asked, his voice slightly muffled in McCoy’s shoulder.

“Then you come round to sickbay and I’ll either smack you over the head or give you some anti-depressants.”

“And what about you?”

“Can’t. They make my hands shake.”

“You know what I mean, Bones.”

“No Jim, I don’t. Will you let go already?”

Kirk reluctantly released his hold on McCoy and stepped back. He didn’t apologize, couldn’t.

“You need your rest,” McCoy said, moving away and rifling through his supplies.

“Right. So do you.”

The hypo was pulled out and Kirk went into the bedroom, sitting down on the end of the bunk.

“Do you really have to go?” he asked, making one last attempt to keep a hold on his friend’s reassuring presence.

“Yes, Jim. I don’t see what your problem is.”

With a small hiss he administered the sleeping drug, and Kirk began to instantly feel his eyelids getting heavier. His whole body was weary, but now a calm was descending over him that might actually allow him to sleep deeply.

McCoy slipped out of the room and made for the door quietly. There was the subtle clink as he gathered the bottle he had brought over, a hollow sound as he deposited their glasses in the cleaning receptacle. Then silence. After a couple minutes of cursing, he came back.

“Jim, your damn door’s not responding.”

“S’okay, when Spock gets steady power to the computer it won’t glitch like that anymore. It’ll be a while.”

“Well what the hell am I supposed to do until then?” McCoy barked.

“Get some sleep,” Kirk said, slurring his words a little as he began to feel drowsier. He lay down on one side of the bed, taking care to leave lots of room. He patted the empty space beside him. When his friend hesitated, Kirk closed his eyes with a faint smirk.

“Chicken.”

McCoy opened his mouth to argue, but Kirk was already snoring softly.

“Dammit Jim, if you had comfier chairs I’d sleep in one of them,” he grumbled, knowing the younger man couldn’t hear him. He still had to justify it to himself, after all. They were both heterosexual men in full uniform lying on top of the sheets. Even if Spock got the door open before they woke up, there would be no misconceptions about what the arrangement was.

He lay down on the bed, taking care to lie as close to the edge as he could comfortably manage. Heaving a sigh, he tried not to think about Kirk’s sudden emotional dependence on him. He’d put him in his place later. Right now, Kirk was in a drug-induced slumber and there was nothing to do in his quarters except fall asleep himself. It had been a long time since McCoy had drifted off to sleep with a warm body by his side, though it concerned him greatly that this time it was his very male captain. He lay with his back facing Kirk, trying to pretend that he was in a less awkward situation. He couldn’t help but listen to the even breathing. It was nice not to be alone, he figured as he closed his eyes, but he had never intended to end up this close to Jim. It was weird. He was too weary to worry for long, and soon his steady breathing was rising and falling in tandem with his friend’s.

Sometime in the night, Kirk rolled over in his sleep and threw one arm and one leg over McCoy’s sleeping form, curling his body around him. It was comfortable and warm, and neither man was woken by the movement. Only when Spock found them in the morning would they have time to be mortified.


End file.
